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The Buttonmashers are Roberta Voulon and Étienne Caron, a couple that lives, parents, and makes together.

We had a store on Etsy back in 2005-06, where we were selling handmade stuff such as Pacman-inspired PC joysticks made from arcade parts and T-shirts with a mashup portrait of Che Guevara and Mario (it was a nod to the Nintendo Revolution coming out soon after, now known as the Wii). Basically they were products inspired by the games we used to play as kids. We had already done our third arcade cabinet by then, which had artwork inspired by Space Invaders.

We still had an almost-finished 4-player cabinet that was providing lunch-time entertainment to colleagues in the office cafeteria. Last year we teamed up with the people from the Mount Royal Game Society to turn it into a showcase of games made by local indie game developers (Ephemere Games, Henk Boom, Joachim Despland, No Fun Games, Kenny Backus, Les Collégiennes and Umlautgames) and artists (Derek Kaschl). The Arcade Royale was unveiled at the Prince of Arcade event in 2011 and will now be at the Montreal Mini Maker Faire.

We have several projects just longing to be made, such as fightsticks made from aluminum and wood, and we would finally be able to accept orders for custom arcade cabinets, as people ask us a lot about that. We can now make that arcade cab with HDTV for your PS3, to play StreetFighter death-matches with your friends. Yes, we can help set up an arcade cabinet in your office cafeteria.

If you’re anywhere near Montreal, come and play Arcade Royale this weekend!

Sabrina is the Maker Faire Program Director. She works on stage content for the flagship fairs (Bay Area & New York), and also runs Maker Faire’s licensing program for locally and independently produced “Mini” Maker Faires. She also co-creates the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in her town, Oakland, CA.